What makes people think racially?

Question

I cannot understand why people think racially, is it comes from selfishness? or from any other thoughts? The blood inside our viens is same, the function of every parts of our body is same except the brain... Can any body share their thoughts ?

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The question arose because I go through my childhood through a very bad racial situations, but rather than thinking racially it helped me to think beyond race.

Answer 1

Our distant caveman ancestors survived because they took care of their own tribe in preference to everyone elses. Although it is no longer a survival trait (and often challenges survival these days), the tendency towards tribalism like that is still programmed into our genes. We just have to try and find a way to overcome it.

Answer 2

Why would I think you are asking a crackpot question or the answer list would be filled with a bunch of flippant or crackpot answers? Because it seems to happen so often.

Some of the things we do are learned from people we respect, whose opinions and experience hold value. Others are learned from our own experience, something that holds still more value.

We make associations. It is practical, useful, and often correct. A while back I was somewhere when a black man walked into the room. His eyes flashed anger. Out of several people in the room, he spotted me and came straight to me. I moved to a more defensible posture and position (and no it wasn't any kungfu or put up my dukes thing). His face was a hardened scowl. Drawing close to me, his face in my face, he fairly yelled, turning the heads of everyone else in the room, "What are you thinking? You're thinking I came in here to rob this place. You whites are all alike." Then he turned and walked back out. Which of us showed racism and prejudice? He affirmed to me that he was dangerous, but I'd have done the same if it was a white woman. We project our anger, our malicious thoughts, even our simple disapproval with our bodies. How strange is it to associate hate (real hatred, not just the political correctness notion), irrationality, and danger to people that share other common characteristics. Political commentator David Soul, comic Bill Cosby, politicians J. C. Watts, Colin Powell, and Condolesa Rice have all commented on how blacks are just as predisposed to exhibit racism as whites. Black politicians fume at these accomplished and intelligent people, Kwazi Infumo, when he was the NAACP leader lambasted such of his own race frequently, even to claim "They are not black!" But they would strangely call Bill Clinton the first American Black President.

Racism feeds on itself and becomes a culture. I became defensive when an angry man enters a room with no interest in what is in the room except me, a person of another color. Yet, he was accusing me of being the racist. Now tell me, were I not a fair and reasonable man, would I not have cause to lump angry black men into a category of something to automatically despise and dislike?

Something to remember, sometimes we disapprove of other cultures. This is not automatically "hate". There is a black culture. There is a white culture. I'm also American Indian, so I know that there is also an Indian culture. Culture is a broad term and covers a wide range of behavior. There are some who are angry at anything and look for any label to attach to being the object of that anger. Race is one of those things. We just must remember, it is the individual, not the whole community, that we dislike or disapprove of. Sparlin Norwood, a Cherokee Indian representative to various public venues was talking with me once. He would throw in distracting comments like, "There, you are thinking like a white man" and "There, you are thinking like an Indian". After a while I answered, "And just how am I supposed to think about this?" He laughed, slapped my arm, and said, "I don't care, as long as you are thinking." Perhaps we simply grab an old thought, when we should be thinking.

Answer 3

I agree with sir j, however, I think just by asking the question, you yourself think about people being different races. To not think about races, one would have to grow up in a society that did not contain any separation of people based on their skin color...it seems it would probably be unacceptable, or at least very strange, for a black person to be a country singer (in the US), it would need to be the norm to see any person in any position, whether it is entertainment, politics, education, or just within friend groups. It would have to be the norm for anyone to date anyone, movies would stop having the "token black guy", there would be no BET, people would have to basically be blind towards others so that they would not be biased based on skin color...

Answer 4

Just Stupidity. It really makes no sense anymore, but , what 'cha gonna do except speak out against stupid jokes and slurs. I went in the hospital and got 4 units of blood. I wasn't suppose to know, but one unit was from a black woman. I personally thought this was cool, as I have donated up to 5 gallons of blood, and I got some back!! I hope she or her family members, if they needed it, got some of mine. All In The Family!!

Answer 5

Lack of education, bad parenting and role models in their life, poor upbringing.

It's a shame but there's a cycle.... bad people raise bad children in many cases. We need to praise those who rise above their circumstances and learn to think like real members of the human race.

Answer 6

Most often it's handed down or it's the enviroment we live in.

Answer 7

when people have nothing to prove how the are superior to others they start thinking abt these kind of concepts, racism, etc etc.